Abstract: A velvet fabric is produced by warp knitting on a three-bar warp knitting machine by knitting ground yarns on the machine's middle bar to provide structural and dimensional integrity to the fabric and pile yarns on the machine's top bar in extended underlaps which are shearable, nappable, brushable, or otherwise raisable to produce an upstanding raised pile. In order to resist any tendency of the pile yarn to be pulled from the fabric, the present invention contemplates that the pile yarns should be microdenier multifilament synthetic yarns while the ground yarns should also be multifilament synthetic yarns of a relatively low denier per filament not exceeding approximately 1.5 denier per filament and of a total collective denier approaching but not exceeding that of the pile yarns, preferably in excess of about 75 percent of the total denier of the pile yarns.